


Christian Name

by chronicAngel



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Baby Names, F/M, Names, POV Third Person, Pregnancy, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 07:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15601695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "You talk like someone who was born in 1730."





	Christian Name

She sits between his legs, leaning back against him with all of her weight. Her back hurts when she sits up for too long now, thanks to the weight of the small human she grows. (It might not be a human, though. There are too many sources that say his son is bound to be something evil. He hates that.) Her eyes are closed like she could be asleep, but he knows she's not. His hands rest on her stomach, fingers splayed, even though their son has not moved beneath his hands in almost an hour. He enjoys just resting his hands there and knowing there is life underneath them.

"Darla?" She hums, rolling her head back against his shoulder and cracking her eyes open. "What was your..." He pauses, brow furrowing. "Your Christian name?"

She laughs. "I never _had_ a _Christian name_." He remembers how much she rejected religion when they were together; for hundreds of years, she hated it. He has never known why. "You talk like someone who was born in 1730," she remarks after a minute.

He scoffs. "1727. You know that." She hums in acknowledgement after a minute. He supposes it is possible that after almost a century of not speaking or else actively trying to kill each other, she may have simply forgotten. He certainly doesn't know the year she was born in, though he's not sure he ever did. "2001... Isn't it weird that you can be born in the 16th century, die in the 17th, and then have a kid in the 21st?" She hums again. He doesn't think she cares very much about this conversation.

"I don't remember my given name," she says. "The name I was born with, that is. Whatever it was, nobody's called me it since... 1693? '94 maybe. The Master thought Darla suited me better. Prettier, more original. I suppose I probably had some boring name like Anne or Elizabeth or..." She thinks for a moment, and then spits like it is something dirty, "Or _Katherine_."

"My sister's name was Katherine," he says defensively.

She sighs. "And your sister went by Kathy and died in 1753. I hardly think it's relevant."

He supposes she's right. He doesn't actually remember much about his sister, other than the fact that he had one. He knows he killed her. He thinks about it sometimes. (Often.) She really marked the beginning of his time as something really... horrible. Not drinking his life away and yelling about the rich or being turned by a beautiful blonde demon in a dirty alleyway, but the moment when little Kathy opened the door for him and invited him in, certain he was an angel.

He shudders at the memory and Darla makes a noise that might constitute a complaint because he's supposed to be playing backrest. As though realizing his mother is unhappy and deciding he should be unhappy as well, the baby kicks against Angel's palm, two little beats of angry feet, and then shifts like he's rolling over to go back to sleep and stills again. "Have you thought about a name?" He asks after a minute. They haven't talked about this yet. They should have.

"Of course I haven't," she snaps immediately, as though the idea that she might have is almost offensive. She goes on to add, "I've been consulting ancient books and shamans and voodoo priests all over this half of the planet for months trying to find a way to _get rid of it_. I didn't want to imagine that I might have to keep it, and now I _do_ , and I know you're here and your whole little _gang_ of friends is here but it still feels like I'm all alone... like _we're_ all alone, and..." She trails off, her voice having gone from "grouchy" to "on the verge of tears" in half a second. This is not the first time this has happened. He would be surprised if it was the last.

He shushes her as gently as he can and moves his hands to rub her back even as they are still somewhat trapped in the (maybe) inch and a half space between her back and his chest. She lets out a few sobs, then draws in a few shaky deep breaths. This, too, is a familiar routine. She has never been the sort to show such blatant emotion even as she has always had a flare for the dramatics (at least none other than anger and disgust and sometimes ecstasy). He'd wondered for decades if she even had any, after he got his soul back. It would not make sense for her to spend hours crying now, even as there are so many supposed hormones pumping through her, if she can avoid it.

"I bet it was... Grace, or something like that. Maybe Barbara."

"W-what?" She stutters after a minute, wiping at her eyes and sniffing. The baby shifts under his hands again, and he thinks he must be stirring. He wonders if it is because he can tell that his mother is upset, or if it is because his sleeping patterns are simply as irregular as his father's. He hopes that the latter is not the case. Darla hardly seems to notice him moving, somehow, instead staring at Angel with red-rimmed eyes in confusion. (What he has just said has nothing to do with their most recent conversation. She is rightfully confused.)

"Your name," he explains after a minute. "Those were names back in your time, weren't they?" He adds, teasing. She breathes out something sort of like a laugh and he smiles at her, trying to make her feel better. He is not as good at the actual emotional comfort-- not like Cordy is; even Wesley to an extent. He can certainly try to distract her from her problems, though, even if this is a very temporary solution. "Point is, you're too extraordinary to have been born with something boring like Elizabeth, no matter what your life was like when you were human." He doesn't know very much about it, beyond the syphilis parts.

She laughs a little again. "There was nothing extraordinary about me back then. I found my way from bed to bed in Virginia the same way trashy young girls do now. It wasn't glamorous." She speaks of her own life like it is something disgusting even as there isn't even a hint of disgust in her voice. He finds that astonishing.

There is a minute of silence, their son occasionally moving under his hands (his movements grow more frequent, but he doesn't kick again). She continues to look like she might fall asleep at any moment. He thinks she has looked like that for 80% of her pregnancy (at least the parts he has witnessed).

"Maybe... Cecily," she says after a minute. Something about her voice is half-dazed, like she is talking in her sleep. She certainly doesn't look wide awake, but when he checks, her eyes are still open. "Or Maria. I think I worked with a young woman named something like Maria... Margaret maybe. The details get so blurry near the end." He realizes, a second too late, that she is speculating on what her name might have been.

"Cecily is nice. Sounds... French, kind of. You always did like France." _And Italy, and Rome, and Budapest, and anywhere where something was happening_. She hums, and then laughs at what he supposes must be a fond memory.

Twisting at the waist as much as she can in her state to face him, she wears a bright grin as she asks, "Do you remember when we went to Paris?" He raises a brow skeptically and just before he can counter that they went to Paris a number of times, she adds, "In 1887, when they were building the Eiffel Tower. We went to an artists' gathering and you brought me a painter."

"Made him paint you in oils before we ate him," he adds. She laughs, somewhat resembling a squeal of delight, and nods. It would have been a pleasant memory once. His feelings on the matter are... more than mixed, now. He likes to see the way that she smiles when she thinks of it, though. She returns to facing away from him and leaning back against him now, settling her head back on his shoulder once more. "I don't know whatever happened to that painting," he remarks after a minute, which is true. He doesn't remember what happened to many of the small luxuries they enjoyed. He can't imagine the painting ever left France.

"Vampire hunters burned the hotel we were staying in to the ground when trying to kill us," she answers, scowling. "It was lost in the flames."

"Oh." He tries not to sound genuinely surprised. (He's not, really. They were attacked by vampire hunters near-constantly, after Holtz.) "If this were still 1887, I'd say we could go and get another one done, after the baby. I suppose no one really does oil portraits nowadays, though." He expects her to laugh. She doesn't. She stays deathly silent and stares at the wall, lost in thought. He frowns. "Darla...?"

"He should have an Irish name," she says, and this time he is the one confused as he is dragged back to an earlier, seemingly abandoned conversation. "English names are all so boring. Every man in England in my time was John or Robert or William. How dull. Irish names are much nicer. Callum and Eion and Aedan..." She trails off. He doesn't want to point out that all of those names are pretty 1700s.

He hums in thought. "Perhaps something a little easier for teachers to read. Or, y'know, something Cordy can pronounce," he says, and she laughs. They privately make fun of Cordy a lot, even as he adores her and has heard Darla say that Cordelia is someone she might be able to consider a friend, if they had met in 1910. "Brian is a nice one. Still around, too, so that helps." She makes a face like she has just eaten something sour. He laughs. "Anthony?" She shakes her head, but she is smiling in amusement. It is strange to see her so expressive. "We'll work on it," he says. She hums, and their son shifts again. He likes how domestic this feels. Peaceful. He wishes it would stay that way. It won't.


End file.
